"Thank you for bringing my gun... And you brought me all the way here..."
Not noticing the strange atmosphere in the room, Luck thanked Nikolai gratefully.
Even if he had lost his gun, he could have easily replaced it, but if Nikolay had harboured any ill will towards him when he fainted, he would have been dead by now.
"I did what I had to do..." As much as Nikolai wanted to be angry with Luck for what he had said earlier, he couldn't say anything as he thanked him sincerely.
"I killed the rhinoceros beetle... didn't I?" said Luck, shocked by his forced breakthrough and the achievement of 2-star power.
Thinking that he wanted the valuable parts of the star beast he had killed, Nicholas asked. "Yes, you killed that rhinoceros beetle... My subordinates will remove the valuable parts from it."
"Valuable parts?"
"Yes, its horn is worth a lot of money, its shell makes good armour, and its head..." Nikolai interrupted when he thought of the rhinoceros beetle's shattered head "Never mind the head, what are you going to do with the parts from the rhinoceros beetle and the other star beasts?"
Luck threw his hands in the air "I never thought of that... it was your subordinates who risked their lives by pulling all those star beasts... use it as their payment."
Hearing Luck's words, Nikolai and his subordinates were shocked.
Although the parts of the low-star star beasts were not worth much, the parts of the 4-star rhinoceros beetle were very valuable! Its shell, known for its hardness and toughness, could be worth thousands of gold as long as it found the right buyer.
"Luck, are you sure? The money from other star beasts is fine, but the rhinoceros beetle... it's worth a lot of money..."
Luck asked curiously.
"How much?"
"The rhinoceros beetle is a hard-to-hunt star beast. Its horn is a few hundred gold coins... Its shell is at least a thousand gold coins..."
"That many?" Luck exclaimed in surprise.
Nikolay nodded his head in agreement "Yes, congratulations on easily killing a hard-to-kill star monster."
Luck blushed at the sudden compliment "haha, thanks, I couldn't have done it without you..."
Nikolay, whose eyes were fixed on Luck's sniper rifle, said "You looked like you could have done it without us... That weapon of yours is very effective..."
"Well, I wouldn't say that... How many bullets did I use... 4 or 5? It would have been more effective if I had used armour-piercing bullets... Or if my bullets were harder..."
Nikolai and his subordinates felt like vomiting blood.
You killed a rhinoceros beetle in a few seconds! You're still dissatisfied!
...
Later that night.
Nikolai, who had summoned his subordinates to his room with his daughters after Luck had disappeared again, looked very serious.
In the centre of the room was the head of a rhinoceros beetle with its head smashed in.
"What do you think about this?"
Those who looked at the rhinoceros beetle's head remained silent.
Nikolai looked into everyone's eyes one by one and said, "Can you do this kind of damage in a few seconds?"
No one made a sound.
"Well, let me change my question, can you kill a 4-star rhinoceros beetle by yourself?"
"We could, but it would take a long time, it would be very difficult to break its shell and damage it."
Nodding in agreement, Nikolai turned to his subordinates "What about you?"
His subordinates nodded one by one.
"the strongest of us has 3-star power... it is impossible to kill the rhinoceros beetle alone... if we attack it as a group... we can kill the rhinoceros beetle, but it may take hours."
What Nikolai heard was entirely within his expectations.
"But Luck was able to kill the rhinoceros beetle in seconds with only 1-star power... What do you think about that?"
"The metal tools he used...what was he saying, firearms don't have star power but they have lethal power." One of the men who witnessed Luck killing the rhinoceros beetle spoke up.
"You're right, firearms...although I don't think they will be effective against star beasts with high star power because they don't have star power, they are very effective against star beasts with 4 stars and below...but the red moon is approaching and you all know what that means."
Everyone got goosebumps when they heard the word red moon.
The red moon was an event feared by everyone, during the red moon the star monsters would become so enraged because the star power in the air became unbalanced that they would attack everything in sight, so much so that even empires would declare a state of emergency during the red moon and mobilise all star warriors and star mages to protect cities and all other towns and villages.
Nikolai looked at his daughters for a moment, "You all remember what happened during the red moon last year..." A deep sadness could be heard in Nikolai's voice.
No one in the room dared to make a sound as Senna and Elsa felt like crying.
During last year's red moon, when they were defending their compound with all their might to prevent an attack by star monsters, a 5-star star monster suddenly appeared and caught Nikolay and his warriors off guard. The star beast, which had the opportunity to enter the compound, caused a massacre and killed hundreds of people, including Nikolai's wife Senna and Elsa's mother.
Senna realised what her father was getting at and said, "If we can get more of these weapons from Luck..."
"Yes, if we can get more of those firearms, even people without star power will have the power of self-defence... We won't have to go through the tragedy of last year again..."
"You are right, guild master, but ...."
"But what?" Nikolai looked at his subordinate who had spoken but then hesitated between speaking and not speaking.
"Firearms are useless without consumables called bullets... As we run out of bullets, we will have to buy them from Luck... If we have a disagreement with Luck, the firearms we buy will be useless."
Nikolai agreed with his subordinate's concern and said "Yes, you are right about that, if we buy firearms we will become a bit dependent on him, but using firearms we can cross the red moon without any problems... and you have also seen that you can get star power by killing star beasts using firearms..."
Nikolai's subordinate's eyes widened in surprise as he thought of something "Guild master you mean..."
"Yeah..." Nikolai smiled broadly. "With firearms, our star warriors and star mages can quickly become stronger..."
...
Luck, who came home late at night again, was surprised to see that the house lights were off.
Thinking that his mother was waiting for him in the dark room, Luck said "Mummy?"
...
"Mum, don't be angry, I'm sorry..."
No sound
Finding the light switch in the darkroom by groping, Luck hesitantly pressed the switch and switched on the lights.
Suddenly blinded for a moment by the bright light, Luck opened his eyes and saw that there was no one in the living room.
"I guess he's determined to do what he says."
As he switched off the light and reached for the door handle to return to his room, a crack was heard.
Luck looked at the door handle with surprised eyes where the crackling sound came from and froze.
The doorknob that should have been on the door was no longer there! When he tried to open the door, the doorknob snapped off and stayed in his hand!
Luck, who hadn't yet gotten used to his newfound strength and had broken the doorknob because he had applied too much force for a moment while trying to open the door, looked at the riddled door and the doorknob in his hand.
"How am I going to explain this to my mum?"